Scorpions unveil plan for 6,100-seat stadium

New soccer facility is scheduled for opening in 2013.

Updated 8:22 pm, Monday, January 9, 2012

Franchise owner Gordon Hartman is going ahead with his plans for a stadium for his San Antonio Scorpions soccer team.

Franchise owner Gordon Hartman is going ahead with his plans for a stadium for his San Antonio Scorpions soccer team.

Scorpions unveil plan for 6,100-seat stadium

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

The San Antonio Scorpions will begin their inaugural season in early April at Heroes Stadium on the city's northeast side.

But the future of the soccer franchise will be taking shape right across the street.

As expected, franchise owner Gordon Hartman announced Monday that groundbreaking on a privately financed, 6,100-seat stadium will take place in March at a site adjacent to his Morgan's Wonderland park for special-needs individuals.

“You don't talk about it, you do it,” said Hartman, who declined to reveal the cost of the facility. “And that's what we're doing. This is a major investment, and it brings a lot to San Antonio.”

The stadium, located near the intersection of Thousand Oaks Drive and Wurzbach Parkway, is scheduled to be completed by March 2013, shortly before the North American Soccer League Scorpions begin their second campaign.

The announcement came less than a year after Hartman was rejected in a bid to secure $8 million in public money from Bexar County and the city to construct the facility near the STAR Soccer Complex.

Most Popular

He then settled last spring on holding the first season at Heroes Stadium, a North East Independent School District complex. Hartman hopes, through his various soccer enterprises, to funnel profits into the 25-acre Morgan's Wonderland.

Hartman stressed that construction of the stadium would be accomplished with “no funds outside private funding.”

“It is the ultimate in bringing soccer to San Antonio in the way soccer should be in San Antonio,” he said of the planned stadium, designed to be expanded in several phases depending on how the franchise performs.

Built to FIFA specifications, the site would include Tifsport Bermuda grass, luxury suites, a patio/beer garden, video scoreboard and shaded seating on the west side of the facility.

Among the previous signees was Kevin Harmse, whose wife, Monica, grew up in San Antonio.

“This is a city that my wife and I already consider home,” Harmse said Monday.

The club, which welcomes players Feb. 17 and begins workouts the next day, also will put together a developmental squad that will sometimes work alongside Scorpions players.

Afterward, Hartman reiterated his commitment to the San Antonio Independent School District to host up to 76 games, at no charge, at STAR Complex. The SAISD is in the middle of a contentious debate over whether to expand historic Alamo Stadium, at great cost, to accommodate professional soccer.

Spurs Sports & Entertainment has expressed its intentions to bring a United Soccer Leagues franchise to Alamo Stadium. Hartman said he didn't know whether observers would view his bid to aid SAISD as a strategic roadblock against the Spurs.

“I don't know if I can make that judgment,” he said. “Here's what I do know: We are going full force. We started this 18 months ago, and a lot of people questioned how serious we were.

“I hope that we've come to this point and it illustrates our seriousness about this. We're not talking about it. We're moving forward with it.”